Monday, December 14, 2015

Lowering the drinking age to 18 would help reduce rape

My last post
discussed the difference between causality and culpability in the context of
the college rape epidemic. This post will present a more specific argument
involving that distinction. In a sentence, I believe that while alcohol
prohibition is not to blame for rape, lowering the drinking age would have the
effect of reducing rape’s prevalence, which makes it a highly worthwhile and
overdue reform which feminists should enthusiastically support.

For years,
feminists have noted that rape is significantly more prevalent on college
campuses, and rightly focused their efforts on making those colleges safer for
female students. Feminists rightly blame a “rape culture” for fostering male
entitlement to female bodies, but since that culture exists both on and off
college campuses, it still doesn’t explain the disparity between rates of rape
on college campuses and rates of rape elsewhere.

There are many potential reasons for this disparity, but one plausible
distinction is that college campuses have a lot of 18-21 year olds, who are
herded into more dangerous settings than they would be otherwise by laws
preventing them from enjoying alcohol under safer conditions. Just as drug
prohibition requires drug users to acquire their drugs in discreet and violent
underground settings, alcohol prohibition funnels naïve college freshmen into
crowded fraternity basements to drink jungle juice with older males of
suspect intentions.

Drunkenness does not cause rape, but it does decrease potential victims’
awareness of what’s going on around them and their ability to resist or call
for help. Drunk targets are easy targets. Rapists know this. Rapists are
attracted to venues where alcohol will be served to minors for the precise
reasons alcohol is being served to minors at those venues: there will be a lot
of tipsy young women, and they will be deliberately hidden from law enforcement
supervision. Imagine John is a rapist, and he’s thinking to himself, “Where can
I go to maximize the likelihood that I can rape someone and get away with it?”
Wouldn’t John much prefer the secluded enclaves of a mostly-male frat party to
public places where policemen or bouncers might be patrolling, like a bar or
nightclub?

To be clear,
I have no problem with the underage consumption of alcohol, and don’t blame it (or the people who engage in
it) for our country’s rape problem. No thoughtful person would say that alcohol
causes rape. What I am saying is that
alcohol prohibition enables rapists,
and that it does this by requiring alcohol consumption to take place in under
conditions in which rape is easier to commit and get away with.

To be even more clear,
I am NOT blaming victims who drank alcohol in any way, shape or form. The onus
should not be on them to have to take preventative measures or alter their
behavior. All people should be free to drink however much they want, wherever
they want, without the fear of being raped, and the fact that many women lack
that freedom is a horrendous injustice. When rape happens, only rapists are to
blame for it.

But just because
alcohol prohibition is not morally culpable for rape doesn't mean it isn't an
indirect facilitator. Like rape culture at fraternities, prohibition enables
and empowers rapists by creating conditions under which rape is easier to
commit and get away with. Were alcohol legal for 18-21 year olds, and
accessible at any bar, nightclub or liquor store, far fewer college students
could be lured into secluded party spots to drink immeasurable amounts of
alcohol with total strangers. Instead, underclassmen could party on their
own terms, with their own friends, either in bars with a bouncer nearby or in
private dorms and apartments to which strangers do not have access – just as
upperclassmen usually prefer to party today.

Again, lowering the
drinking age would not solve the rape crisis, and should not be marketed as a
comprehensive solution to our campus rape problem. But if it can reduce those
rapes by making them practically more difficult to accomplish, isn’t that a
worthwhile interim goal?